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Sculptures
When we think of sculpture, perhaps white
life-size marble statues come first to mind. Next to
chiseling hard materials away, such as stone and wood,
sculpture also includes the modeling of soft clay and
wax, forming and assembling metal, carving ivory,
enameling and firing terracotta. Sculptures come as
freestanding statues, wood panels, stone reliefs and
composite objects.
Needless to say, sculpture is an ancient art. The Venus
of Willendorf is 25,000 years old.
Venus of Willendorf
In the past 100 years, the visibility of
sculptures has regressed to the point where they are
nearly invisible now.
From antiquity until the late 1800s, sculptures were
everywhere in evidence, in cities as well as in the
country. They adorned in abundance public and private
buildings. They were set in squares, plazas, and public
fountains. They decorated churches inside and out. They
lined avenues, stood in all gardens, and kept watch in
cemeteries. The same was true in the countryside, where
they were to be found even in the most isolated of
places, standing at crossroads, topping hills, set in
alcoves along byways.
Statues have gone from being everywhere to being
nowhere. They have disappeared from our cities and
interiors. They used to be part of our visual
environment, everywhere we looked.
Now, as a cynic recently wrote, statues have become the
thing you bump into, when you step back to look at a
painting.
Sculptures used to please everyone. Some were an
inspiration, others an escape. Today, only the most
enlightened of art cognocenti, continue to surround
themselves with these silent companions.
Museums have become the primary repository; warehousing
more than exhibiting.
The value of a sculpture depends primarily on who
executed it.
The market is driven by information, rather than
appreciation. The name accounts for 90 percent of the
value, and the sculpture itself for 10 percent.
If the work is anonymous, when and where it was
executed, who may have owned it before, where it was
exhibited, and other pieces of information, become the
crucial factors in its value.
Providing information is precisely what we do.
We research, identify, ascribe, authenticate and
appraise sculptures.
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